Go Big or Go Home...

...If someone were to write a biography of my life, this would be the appropriate title. When I commit myself to something, I often take an "all or nothing" attitude, which has been great for my school work, my professional life and everything in between. When I was following my diet plan through the ass-half of last year, it was what enabled me to be so succesful in losing weight and following a healthy lifestyle. Unfortunately, after my last post last night, I literally ate my own words - and peanut butter, lasagna, frozen chocolates, 100 calorie cakes, deserts and more. I had no sooner written my pride of a succesful week, when I thought I should have a small bite of something. 30 minutes later I was suffering from a serious case of "gut rot" and guilt. My reason for even staying in last night was to work on a school assignment that should have taken no longer than an hour, but took me about 4 hours to finish due to my distractions.

Today was no better. After attending a lunch party this afternoon, this has likely been my biggest day of failure to date. I had 4 (yes 4) slices of pizza (in my defense they were not huge slices but everyone else on average had 1-2 slices) and a chocolate bar (in case yu're wondering what kind of lunch party it was, it was at the movie theatre with a volunteer group I work with). So I thought that would be my day, but halfway through the movie we saw, I started thinking about how I had already blown my "diet" and should get something on the way home.

When I stopped in to get something at the grocery store and didn't find what I was looking for, I went to another store in search of something chocolatey and sweet. This turned out to be a huge brownie with marshmallows on top and was amazing, if I do say. But it didn't stop there. While sitting in front of the computer once I was home, I polished off 3 more chocolate bars (regular size) and had a plate of casserole for dinner. You would think I might be full by this point - and I was, but he was tempting me, telling me I needed more. So I went to my good friend PB (which is down to about half a jar from yesterday), ate some frozen cookie dough, more deserts and finished it all off with some chocolates. If I thought I had a bad case of "gut rot" yesterday, well that was nothing.

As I'm typing this I don't think I have ever felt so sick in my life. I won't be going out with my friends tonight because I feel so sick and I think I actually have too much sugar in my system as my hands are now shaking. It is this "go big or go home" mentality that is going to be the end of me, which was what I did last night and today. And I can't throw up. Not because I don't want to, because I do, but I can stick my fingers down my throat all I want and can't seem to bring anything up. And what's scary is as sick as I feel, I still want to eat more - to taste food in my mouth, to taste anything.

Now, I know I have a lot of information on how I should be fighting this, and I was fine until yesterday but I got caught up in the ugly grips of binging and am paying for it now. But I guess this was the point of my blog, so I can document my ups and downs. I can't even express how much I hate myself right now as I'm sitting here crying.

I was going through a community newspaper yesterday and came across an ad for Overeaters Anonymous. I had no idea such a thing existed, but perhaps is something I will look into. It follows the format of Alcoholics Anonymous and Gambler's Anonymous, which is comforting since this tells me that there are people in this world who recognize food as an addiction - something I have been unsuccessful in convincing people that this actually exists. I was on their website and fit most of the criteria as an overeater on their homepage. I am hoping to attend a meeting this week just to see what they are about. What I am looking for is a community of people who understand this, and this could be just the place to find it.

I am going to try and sleep now, as early as it is, with the assistance of sleeping pills, as I just want to sleep this off. Hmm, I've found myself saying that very thing after a night out on the town as well, interesting correlation between excessive drinking and eating - maybe they aren't so different after all. I mean, have you ever heard someone say "I wish I drank more"? People usually say "I shouldn't have drank so much". Just replace the word "drank" with "ate" and it is essentially the same thing. Interesting...

This "go big or go home" attitude is just what my counsellor was speaking to when she suggested RESTART. When I find myself thinking "all or nothing", it doesn't have to be like that, and any moment is a moment to start over.

So, wish me luck this week, I know this is not going to be easy as I fight the urge to overeat, and undereat to compensate for the last 24hours. I look forward to checking out this Overeaters Anonymous this week.

*N